BUZZ, BUZZ, BUZZ

Age Range: 3 - 5

Pub Date: June 1st, 2001ISBN: 0-88899-430-3Publisher: Groundwood

Set in the Venezuelan jungle, this translation of El Mosquito Zumbador by Chilean writer and publisher Uribe presents a natural solution to a natural problem: how to achieve a good night’s pleasant sleep on a moonlit, quiet night when under attack by a buzzing mosquito. The mosquito’s path is highlighted in a neon-green line cutting through thickets of color and shape in Colombian illustrator Calderón’s woodcut-like pictures and in black-and-white typography extending the buzzes of the text elsewhere on the page. Distressed, Juliana and Andrés jump from bed to escape the bite, then jump back, but the wily bug finds a hole. Unable to smash the hungry insect with a shoe, the children flee from house to jungle, where they plead for help from heavily sleeping monkey, snoozing coral snake, snoring alligator—all familiar toys in their bedroom. The youngsters get no relief until they appeal to yellow owl, mercifully awake, who flies them home, the mosquito pursuing. Yellow owl delivers them to their open window . . . where nice frog sitting on the sill solves the problem in time-honored food-chain fashion. An active story for bedtime when the kids are not quite ready to settle down and great for story times with a theme of life in other climes. Mosquito misery as multicultural means. (Picture book. 3-5)